Wonder of the World - Acting Edition - Softcover

David Lindsay-Abaire

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822218631 ISBN 13: 9780822218630

Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 2002

Synopsis

Two years after Fuddy Meers floored both audiences and critics, David Lindsay-Abaire followed up his debut hit with Wonder of the World, and had critics searching for new superlatives. The New York production featured knockout performances by Sarah Jessica Parker and Amy Sedaris. Ben Brantley, in the New York Times wrote "clearly, Mr. Lindsay-Abaire hasn't lost his playfully wicked eye, equally appalled and affectionate . . . his style both embraces and spoofs the All-American appetite for spiritual lift, sitcom perkiness, and slimy tabloid prurience."

A firm believer in destiny-and inspired by a Marilyn Monroe movie-Cass leaves her husband and boards a bus to Niagara Falls, where she hopes to meet the unknown man she believes herself fated to end up with. Along the way toward the inevitable climax on the brink of the waterfall, she checks items off her list of "things to do in life," and takes the audience on an often moving, always hilarious journey.

About this title

About the Author:

David Lindsay-Abaire is the author of the highly successful Fuddy Meers, which premiered in New York in 1999. He has signed a two-picture deal with Miramax Films, and is currently developing a television show for Conan O'Brien's production company and finishing his screen adaptation of Fuddy Meers. He is a member of New Dramatists, the Dramatists Guild, and the WGA.

From Booklist:

Best-known for the comedy Fuddy Meers, Lindsay-Abaire has a flair for creating quirky but believable characters and enmeshing them in kooky, unbelievable, entertaining plots. This play is the picaresque story of unhappy Cass, who, attempting to leave behind her deadly dull life and husband, flees to Niagara Falls. There she becomes entangled with various neurotics--a heartbroken tour-boat captain, a half-hearted would-be suicide, a pair of incompetent but heartless private eyes--all of whom, before the play is over, discover they are connected in a weird lattice of coincidence; for example, the tour-boat captain's first wife may have been accidentally killed years before by the would-be suicide. Characters and story by themselves would sustain an audience, but Lindsay-Abaire ices the cake with his comic dialogue. Like all truly witty comedy writers, he is a poet in disguise, capable of writing precise, graceful, and economical lines that come to life on the page as well as the stage. If this play doesn't make you laugh out loud, check whether you have a heart. Jack Helbig
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About this edition

• Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0822218631
• ISBN 13: 9780822218630
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 72